Happy in Hell
by DrWorm
Summary: I can hear them talking in the real world, but I'm happy in hell (with my heroin girl). Lance/Pietro slash. Rated for language, drug use, and non-graphic sexual situations.
1. Does Heroin Illuminate the Dark?

Does Heroin Illuminate the Dark Albert L. Ingram, Ph.D. Albert L. Ingram, Ph.D. 3 387 2001-11-11T01:36:00Z 2001-11-11T01:40:00Z 2 1026 5853 Great Lakes Instructional Design and Evaluation 48 11 7187 9.2720 

I swear to god I'm not a drug addict. No, really. I research all this. I probably care too much to be a drug addict, which is sad because I really don't care much.

This will be a series of three shorts. So, yes, there will be more. 

The title of this chapter comes from a Colorfinger song called "The Gay Bar Song". No joke. 

Does Heroin Illuminate the Dark?

I always had this phobia about being left alone. It wasn't that I was afraid of being alone. It was more like, if I was left alone, I'd miss stuff. Things'd happen without me and I miss them. I'd be left in the dark. 

I hated being in the dark. I hated feeling stupid. I always wanted to be in the midst of things, in the midst of people, watching and observing and not missing a single detail. I loathe ignorance. People always seem to be able to twist things to make me come out looking like the idiot. It's easier to avoid that when I see everything, know everything.

The silent observer.

So how did I miss it? And for so long? It didn't make any sense to me. Pietro was always thin. A real, slim Jim, haha… If he turned sideways, I think he would've disappeared.

Fuck.

And he was _always_ moody and pissy. Half the time you didn't even know what he was saying because he was talking so damn fast. Hell, he could've been shouting it at us the whole time and we just never realized…

But in the evenings he'd get really calm. Cool. He'd talk a lot more slowly, and his thoughts weren't quite so jumbled. It was… different. Usually when he was trying to keep his hyper-metabolism under control, you could still see it. He'd twitch, he'd shift and twist in his seat, he'd stutter and trip over his words. Such a challenge, you know, to hold yourself back so the rest of the world can keep up. 

And it would be like that during the day, almost more so. His muscles would jerk horribly some days, as if he was a marionette whose strings were being plucked at random. His speech would also be harder to decipher, even when he made an effort to talk slowly, because the words would come out wrong, or not come out at all. So we wouldn't understand and he'd become frustrated; it almost always ended in shouting matches. 

But in the evenings it was just… serene peace. He'd smile and speak slowly with a lot of emotion in his voice. He'd smile at me and we'd talk. And for once it would be pleasant because we were on the same mental page. He wasn't too far ahead, I wasn't too far behind, and we were right together, thinking together like brothers or lovers or friends. 

I liked those times, as stupid and selfish as it sounds now. Because I can remember how the light played off his smooth, pale skin. I can remember how we'd sit, private and hidden, in my room. Sometimes we would talk, lovely lilting speech that I could have fallen in love with. Other times we would kiss and kiss and kiss. And once he let me touch him, make him moan, feel what sex between two boys was like. He'd reassured me, urged me, goaded me, coached me, comforted me. 

It was so wonderful. I don't think I ever knew reciprocated love, and I just wanted to savor it. Maybe this situation was a little skewed- hell, we only got along during the evenings- but it was something for me to hold on to and treasure like a little schoolgirl with a furious crush. I loved him, he loved me and there we were with our little family in our little house. It was all about pretending, pretending that our lives were what they were supposed to be. Like playing house in preschool, only this was the real, live version. 

And for a long time I was able to convince myself that this was the way it was supposed to be. Maybe that was the way his body had always worked, irritable during the day and happy at night, and I just hadn't noticed before. Or maybe it was a normal thing that had developed, a teenage thing, a puberty thing. Anything. Oh, god, _anything._

When I really start thinking about it, I can usually persuade myself that anyone could have made that mistake. Could have written it off as something normal…

Then I think about the way his eyes looked, sunken and hollow, toward the end. I think about the way his skin seemed too tight, or the way his collarbone and ribs protruded, so sharp and noticeable. I think about the midday vomiting, the goose bumps and the chills, and the occasional shaking fits I would hold him through, muttering frantically in his ear, "What's wrong with you? Do you know what's wrong?"

He always said he didn't know. I guess, in some twisted way, he really didn't. He knew he was an addict, of course- he wasn't stupid. But maybe he didn't know why, didn't know why his life had taken this turn.

It was the marks on his arms that made me stop and look at what was going on. Stupid me, I thought he was cutting himself. I could have understood that. Because that sort of thing seems to mean something, or it means something treatable. Depression, unhappiness, whatever the fuck. I was still naïve enough to think that I would be able to help him through whatever bumps in the road he was experiencing. This was familiar territory.

Did you know that heroin is a derivative of morphine? The very same thing they use for a painkiller in every major hospital in the world. Only a step away. A legal drug only a step away from being a lethal drug, how's that for irony? Haha. And morphine is made from opium, another drug that was great in its time. And opium comes from the poppy, _Papaver somniferum L. _

I swear to god, if I could have ripped every one of those damn plants from the ground by their fucking roots, I would have. 

            It was the syringes that told me this wasn't some idiot thing he had, some personal vendetta against his flesh, some childish way of handling anger. Or, more accurately, it told me that it was exactly that… but more serious than an angsty night spent in the bathroom with a shaving razor.

He said it was like fire pouring into his veins. Fire, spreading, moving up his arm and eclipsing into some sort of soothing warmth that he couldn't get from me, that selfish little fucker. Like fire in the evening when he was high, but like ice in the morning when I had to hold him and reassure him that the world wasn't ending. 

It was all a joke. What was love? He was fucking with some chemicals in his body and that was making him love me. It wasn't real. It was false love, drugged love, fucked up, crack-addict love. It wasn't even pretending anymore, it wasn't playing house. This was pretending life, counterfeiting emotions.

I don't think I ever knew rage until the moment I realized that.

The syringes were on his bed. Sterile, thank god. At least he wasn't going out and sharing his needles, running the risk of contracting AIDs or hepatitis or god knows what else. 

Small, stupid comforts.

At the time the question was very puzzling: what is a healthy fifteen year old boy doing with medical syringes? Very puzzling indeed. So I sat there on his bed, packet of needles in hand, and waited for him. I waited and I _thought._ I thought about loving him, embracing him, and fighting with him. I thought about emptiness and hope. I thought back to when I'd knelt between his thighs and sucked his cock; I thought about the rough, little scars I'd run my hands over without a second thought. Bruises and blood, complacent nights and uncomfortable days, fucking and sucking and just waiting for the confrontation.

And what a confrontation it was.


	2. Heroin Is So Passe

Does Heroin Illuminate the Dark Albert L. Ingram, Ph.D. Albert L. Ingram, Ph.D. 3 510 2001-11-12T00:47:00Z 2001-11-12T00:48:00Z 2 1159 4985 Great Lakes Instructional Design and Evaluation 84 30 8115 9.2720 

Notes: So… short… urg…

The title 'Heroin Is So Passé' comes from the Dandy Warhols song of the same name

Heroin Is So Passé

I heard him before I saw him, light footsteps zipping up the drive, through the door, and up the stairs. It was Saturday, not a school day, and I had no idea where he'd gone. He'd left before I'd woken up that morning, the way he usually did on weekends. It never used to concern me; he'd usually return with groceries and a newspaper. But now I was suspicious. Where exactly did he go? 

What places did he have to go to?

I only had a split second to prepare myself before he reached the landing and threw open the door to his room. The wood of the door cracked and split; I winced with the noise.

He stopped, surprised by my presence in his room and on his bed. Dropping the plastic bag he'd been clutching, he slumped against the doorframe. "What do you want, Lance?" His voice was weary and it seemed to drag on every vowel. 

For a moment, I was struck dumb. Where to start, where to start? I glanced momentarily at the bag lying at his feet; its contents had spilled slightly and I could see they were toiletries like shampoo and toothpaste. Ordinary things. But there was also a bulge at his hip pocket that could have been something else.

Silently, I held up the bag of hypodermic needles I'd been clutching on my lap for the past hour. He didn't flinch.

"So?" He glared at me, ice-blue eyes intimidating.

"Why do you have them?" My throat was dry. I didn't want to have to confront him about something like this.

"Why is it your business?" He countered sharply, bending to pick up the items he'd dropped. "I don't remember inviting you into my room to go through my stuff."

"I was looking for that cd you borrowed last month," I mumbled guiltily as he breezed by me and dumped his stuff on the already crowded dresser. From the corner of my eye, I could see him stop momentarily to preen in the wall mirror, expression slightly distressed at the way his facial features had decayed. He touched the dark circles beneath his eyes, long delicate fingers following the purple curves to his temples and then running them through his limp hair.

"And you couldn't wait until I came home?" His voice had a razor-sharp edge to it, the sarcasm seeming to hide a deeper pain.

"I didn't think it would be a problem."

"Well," he faltered for a moment and then strode to where I was sitting, "Give them back, then."

I stared for a moment at his outstretched hand before making a decision. "I don't think I want to."

"What?" He narrowed his eyes in disbelief, unable to comprehend that someone was actually saying 'no' to him. "What did you say?"

I stood. "I said 'you can't have them.'"

He put his hands on his hips and did his best to look threatening. "Why not? What gives you that power?"

"I'm older than you, I'm stronger than you, I could beat your scrawny ass to a pulp that no one would recognize," I stuffed the bag into my pocket and let my right hand extend to make a loose fist around his neck. He tilted his head defiantly, but I could feel his Adam's apple brush against the palm of my hand as he swallowed his nervousness, "But most of all… I care about you…"

He snorted, tossing his head slightly. I ignored him and continued. "I care about you, and I don't want to see you get hurt."

"And if you'd stay out of my business, you'dseethatI'mnotgettinghurtatall!" His speech sped up and I barely caught the last half of his sentence. Taking advantage of my confusion, he slipped from my grasp and, before I could even see what was happening, I felt his hand in my pocket taking back the needles. He ran around me in a flash of blue and white, coming to rest directly in front of my face. He was smirking with disgusting self-assurance; it looked like a skeleton's grin. 

"Not at all," he repeated, dangling the bag in front of my nose. With a snarl of frustration, I grabbed for him… dumb move. He was so fast; it just made me look foolish and weak. With a haughty laugh and a smile, he turned away from me and began to saunter out the door. 

I grabbed him from behind, clutching at his elbows and holding him as tightly as I dared. "I'm not stupid," I growled in his ear, punctuating the last word with a shake, "I'm _not._"

"I never said you were," his voice dripped with condescension, "Now would you get off of me and leavemethefuckalone!"

"I lived on the streets, too," I whispered. "I know drugs…"

"I hate you!"

"I don't want to see you get hurt…"

"Stop it! Let me go! Stop talking!"

"I care about you, you stupid fuck, I _care_ about _you_…"

"Oh, you only care because I gave you free head!"

His words shocked me, hurt me, and I let him go. Breathless, I watched as he turned to face me and sneered.

I think anger is like a cup of water. We have a tendency to put it all in an enclosed space inside of us, let it build in small increments. And it only takes one little thing, one little nudge, to tip the anger and let it spill over everything and everyone around us.

"You see?" He smiled, but it wasn't a real smile. It was the kind of smile you put on when you don't want anyone to know that you're ready to cry. "You see? Wasn't that all you wanted out of me?"

That simple question struck something inside of me, and suddenly all I could see was red. Red, everything was red, and I could hear my pulse. The blood thudded like a bull's hooves in my ears, like a fucking stampede it sounded so loud. Before I knew what I was doing, before Pietro knew, I was swinging my arm, fist half-cupped. It connected with his chin, and I could feel the bone and flesh beneath mine yield and soften. It was disgusting. His head snapped to the side and he fell at my feet, moaning and clutching his jaw.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on trying to stay upright. The anger was slowly evaporating and I was left with the unsettling feelings of exhaustion and relief. The emotion was physically draining; all of my muscles hurt, my head ached, and I felt nauseated. 

Carefully, I knelt beside Pietro and tried to coax him to move his hands so I could see the extent of the damage. When I tried to touch him, he pushed my hand angrily away. "Don't touch me, fuckin' abuser."

"I'm sorry," I said helplessly.

"Yeah, I'll bet you are," he laughed bitterly as he stood and gingerly touched his fingertips to his bottom lip. They came away bloody. "You damaged your little whore."

"You're not a whore."

He stared down at me, eyes full of contempt and hatred. "You wanna bet?"


	3. Death's Head Grins (Of All My Friends Wh...

Does Heroin Illuminate the Dark Albert L. Ingram, Ph.D. Albert L. Ingram, Ph.D. 4 615 2001-11-12T02:40:00Z 2001-11-12T02:45:00Z 2 893 5092 Great Lakes Instructional Design and Evaluation 42 10 6253 9.2720 

Notes: And another one… This time the title is a takeoff on the lyrics to a Colorfinger song called 'The Color Pit'. I can't help it… both Colorfinger and early Everclear have a lot of references to heroin in their music (hmmm… maybe because that music was written by the same guy? ^^ Could be, could be…)

Death's Head Grins (Of All My Friends Who OD'd and Died)

"What does that mean?" I asked, suddenly frightened at what his response would be.

"Well, you think I take drugs…" He shrugged nonchalantly. "And you're so damn knowledgeable… you figure it out." He left his room and went across the hall to the bathroom; I followed, watching as he grabbed a washcloth and used it to dab at his swelling lip. 

"First things first," I sighed in his ear as he frowned at his reflection in the dirty, smudged bathroom mirror. "You have to tell me… _are_ you taking drugs?"

"I don't have to tell you anything," he snapped. 

"Maybe not," I conceded. "Maybe not… but do you really want me going to… oh… the school guidance counselors and telling them I think you're in trouble?" His eyes widened appropriately. "Or maybe you'd rather I go straight to Magneto and tell him…"

His eyes were so full of ire I thought his stare could have cut diamonds. But I just smiled and looked at our distorted reflection in mirror. "Do you?"

Silently, his hand went to his pocket and pulled out a little white packet he tossed onto the countertop. I grabbed it almost as soon as it left his hand and ripped it wide open.

White powder. It could have been a thousand different drugs. I stared at him, waiting for an explanation. 

His eyes met mine and he grinned. "What? Your detecting skills can't figure out what it is? All that time on the street and you don't even know one drug from another…"

I moved my left hand to the back of his neck and pinched the sensitive nerve right below his hairline. "Tell me…" I said, my voice as low and threatening as I could make it.

"Heroin," he admitted, eyes tearing from the pain I was inflicting on him, "Heroin, all right? Now let go of me!" I did as I was told and released him. As he groaned and rubbed the back of his neck, I turned on the faucet and began to pour the powder down the drain. 

"Hey, that's expensive!" He blurted out, temporarily forgetting the situation. I flashed him a glare and continued to dispose of it.

"Next question," I said, after emptying the bag, crumpling it into a ball, and tossing it into the trashcan, "Do you inject it?"

"Yes."

"Where do you get the needles?"

"I buy 'em with the drug."

"And they come sterilized like that?"

"Yes. Jesus Christ, Lance…"

"Who do you buy them from?"

He set his mouth into a thin line and stared at me from the deep recesses of his hollow eyes. I exhaled with frustration.

"Fine, don't tell me…"

"I wasn't planning on it."

I rubbed my temples unenthusiastically, truly dreading the next part of the interrogation. "Pietro… I'm going to ask you another question and you absolutely have to tell me the truth… ok?" He crossed his arms and shifted his weight, not promising me a damn thing. "How do you pay for it?"

"With money."

I decided not to fight with him. "Where do you get the money?"

He hesitated. And slowly I could see the all the angry and cynical remarks, all the hate and resentment directed at the rest of the world, leave his body. He let his arms drop to his sides and sagged against the cool tile wall. He looked ashen, sick, and unhappy. 

"They pay me to…" He trailed off.

"To what?"

And his eyeballs swiveled in their sockets, sickening and watery, they turned to look at me. Sad, like the eyes of a dying trout. Sad, like the eyes of widows. "To fuck with them."

I swallowed. What do you say to that? "So you are a whore."

"What?"

Ah… apparently you don't say _that_.

"Well, at least you can admit it." It felt liked we'd exchanged personalities. Now I was the one filled with sarcasm and dry wit. 

And those sad widow's eyes dried abruptly; they began to look the eyes of a particularly venomous snake. "Yessss…" he actually hissed at me, body suddenly filled with energy again as he moved forward to taunt me, "Yes, I let them touch me with their cold, slimy hands. I moan and I pretend to enjoy it. They fuck me and I just don't care, because at least they pay me afterwards!" He moved back a little and spun around, showing off his thin body, running his hands through his hair and down his chest. "Do you know how much I cost, Lance?" He smiled with false sweetness. "Fifteen dollars for a blowjob, fifty for a fuck, one hundred for a whole night. Anything special is negotiable." Another bright smile, this one complete with shark-like, predatory teeth. "I bet you couldn't afford me, Lance."

"I didn't know I had to afford you," I said through gritted teeth, "I thought we cared about each other."

"You thought wrong."

"Did I?" I was angry, but it was a special kind of anger. It was the slow-boiling, nervous, tense anger that made it hard to hurt people, but easy to hurt myself. "I dunno, I seem to recall you enjoying it enough to scream my name at the top of your lungs." He sniffed.

"I was high. It doesn't count."

I advanced on him, the anger taking over. "You need to stop. I can't be responsible for you. And I can't put locks on your doors and bars on your windows to keep you from going out and selling yourself cheap for a stupid drug that'll ruin your life anyway." I turned to leave, to get away from the ugly house with its ugly people and its ugly memories. I wanted to leave, to walk and try to figure out what to do… what to do. 

But Pietro had caught the sleeve of my shirt, he was hanging on me, sniveling and whining through his tears. "No, Lance! Please don't leave me! I'm sorry, I'm sorry… but you don't understand, you just don't understand!" And the tears were flowing, damp and hot down his pale, diseased skin and over the bloody contours of his new fat lip. He didn't look beautiful at that moment, he didn't shine the way he had the night we'd made love. But at least he looked like Pietro, and that was enough for me. I swept him into a hug and he sobbed loudly into my shoulder.

"You don't understand… you just don't understand…"


	4. In the Name of God and Love (It’s the Di...

Notes: It's chapter four, which I'm sure everyone is just dying to read. -___- I may seem like an uber-bitch on the review page as I argue my case, but in real life I'm a very nervous person and this scares the hell out of me. I don't like confrontation, especially when I honestly don't think I've done anything wrong or done anything to hurt anyone. 

By the way, this title was going to be called "What Makes You Think You Are Unique?" Yes, a rather blatant and deliberate dig on current circumstances. ^^;; But I decided it didn't fit the chapter at all and would have to wait…  The title I settled on is from the song "Top" by Live.

In the Name of God and Love (It's the Distribution of Fear)

He was right. I didn't understand. Not at all. There were a thousand questions running through my mind and each one of them seemed crass and inappropriate. What did it feel like to fuck someone and get paid for it? How did he feel when he was given the money? Did he ever become aroused? How did he first start taking heroin? Why? Did he really think he'd be able to go on like this forever? Did he really think it helped him?

And then I felt his fragile, skinny arms loop around my shoulders. So thin, so delicate from months of weight loss and ennui. His face was buried in my shirt, which he was busily using as a makeshift tissue as he sobbed through a mood swing of epic proportions. I held him gently, almost afraid he'd break apart in my arms. But his sobs were huge, causing his entire body to quake; I finally figured that if they weren't going to rip him apart, then a tighter hug couldn't cause him any greater damage. So I engulfed his tiny body in my arms, trying to shield him, protect him from the huge, frightening world that was threatening to take him away.

Soon, however, the sobs slowed to sniffles and I could see one red-rimmed eye peering up at me from the folds of my t-shirt. "Well," he mumbled, voice muffled by mucus and cloth, "This is fucking awkward."

I grinned in spite of myself. "Yeah," I smiled down at him, "But we'll get through it."

"Maybe," he shrugged and pushed me away, turning to examine his puffy, tear-streaked features. "Maybe I'll just die and solve everyone's problems."

Swallowing a heavy lump of guilt, I placed one hand on his shoulder. "Do you have any more?"

"Any more what?" He turned to face me, eyes crinkling with annoyance.

"Any more… drugs…" I didn't feel authoritative with him staring at me so viciously. But I decided this was one instance where I'd have to hold my ground… so to speak. "Look… did you think you'd never get caught?"

"I don't know," he answered, staring glumly into the mirror.

"Did you want to get caught?" A confused and startled expression crossed his face, followed by a more suspicious one.

"Who wants to get caught being 'naughty'?" He taunted. I shrugged and scuffed the toes of my boot on the linoleum.

"You know… you don't have to do drugs to get my attention," I whispered, casting a surreptitious look of compassion in his direction. His eyes widened for a moment, and I expected a major outburst; it did not come. His eyes shined, huge and glassy with tears, reflected momentarily in the mirror for me to see. Then he closed his eyes, wiped his hand across his brow, and reached into his pocket. Two more packets were withdrawn and he handed them to me without protest, without regret. Before I could say a word, he left the bathroom, purposefully striding into the hallway.

I followed him out to watch as he disappeared into his room. It was an uncharacteristically long few minutes before he emerged and pressed two small glass vials into my palm. One by one, he closed my fingers over them. I tipped my hand back and forth and felt the familiar slosh of liquid. "Already mixed with water?" He nodded solemnly. "Go lie down in my room, ok?" He nodded again, not looking hostile or unhappy, but just very, very tired. Then he turned his back and left me.

I toyed with the tiny glass jars, flipping them back and forth and feeling the water hit the sides with little power. I pressed my thumb into the packets, feeling the resistance of the powder and the smoothness of the white paper. It frightened me. Even though it wasn't dangerous or potent in the form of the objects I was holding, I knew that it had the potential. And that was enough.

I hurried back to the bathroom sink, turned the cold water on full blast, and quickly disposed of the drug in both of its forms; after I finished, I threw the containers into the trash. Hard. I head the glass shatter as it hit the bottom of the trashcan.

I didn't care. I knew I was losing the control I'd thought I had earlier; that was what was really frightening. I looked back and was amazed that I was able to say what I did say when I said it. No, I couldn't give the good anti-drug speeches. But it certainly could have been worse. I know it could have. 

It was the anger. The anger was the problem, and I just thanked god that it hadn't gone beyond the single punch and our vicious words to each other. I felt guilty, even if I wasn't. And the anger was still simmering inside of me; I could feel it festering. I was so fucking mad and it just wouldn't stop. I was so fucking scared. 

I felt responsible, responsible for Pietro, and his life and well-being. What a responsibility. I could barely keep control of my own life, survive in a household with no adults and only other adolescents for company. No one to turn to. No stability. This was too difficult, everything was too difficult, my life was too difficult. I let out a long, slow breath and stared resolutely at the ceiling. I regarded it with suspicion, as if I could see god in its cracked and broken tiles. 

"This will work," I muttered aloud, "This will work. We can fix this. We can do this."

"I can handle this." What a lie. I couldn't handle it. When I look back, I realize that thinking that was one of the stupidest things I could ever have done. I used to be an optimist, or at least a pragmatist. I knew that sometimes stuff turned out shitty and that was ok; I always thought there was a way to move on, a way to fix the bad things and move on. 

I'm not sure what I believe in now. I still know that some things in life are good and others are bad. I just don't assume that the bad things can be fixed anymore. I believe in apathy now. Because I can't find the energy to be earnest.

When I was growing up, one of the foster homes I was shoved into was filled with very devoted Catholics. By default, I guess I became a Catholic too, for the time being anyway. After baptismal and what not.

The Catholics, the true Catholics, take their religion very seriously. They take god seriously, they take the Pope seriously, they take not eating meat on Fridays seriously. And if you do something bad, really bad… they can take all that away from you. And we're not talking venial sins, or even mortal sins. It has something to do with offending the Church directly, or causing harm or desecration. Or something.

Well, I was never the one who took Sunday school particularly seriously. 

Anyway, what the Church can to is excommunicate you. Exclude you. Shut you away from services, confession, and whatever the hell else is a part of believing these days. Damn your immortal soul, under certain circumstances. It's pretty much the worst thing that could happen to a devout Catholic.

I used to wonder how those people felt. Did they feel like outcasts? Did they feel wronged? Did they feel on the edge of their society, an odd species of social leper?

I looked back; I thought about it again. And I realized that was how _I_ felt. A social miscreant, a ne'er do well. But I wasn't excommunicated from the Catholic church, I was excommunicated from normal life. I felt like every time I came close to leading a life that could be widely accepted as 'normal', I met with an immobile wall. And coming to that wall would actually push me farther back. Back and back and back. 

This was just another wall in my life, another setback that caused a further rift between me and the life I wanted.

A further rift between Pietro and me, and the life I thought I wanted us to live.


	5. I Am Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Ti...

Notes: Urg. . I am not, nor have I been, in writer's mode for awhile. Therefore, this part rather sucks. The problem is that I'm in such a big hurry to get to the ending (C'mon! Hurry up, dammit!) that everything in between just seems like filler (which it's really not, but…). Well, that and the fact that all my good dialogue comes to me right before I go to sleep. Anyway, I have the next six days or so to crank out another few chapters. I know I said three at the beginning… I lied. Try seven or eight now.  

Note to shindo: Thank you for responding…er… again. ^^;; That review page has become our own personal argument! Lucky us! In any case, I do understand where you were coming from. As one of my friends (and a fellow fic writer) pointed out to me, "Well, how would you feel if you saw someone writing a story that was suspiciously like one of mine?" Ah… #^_^# I'm sure I would have reacted similarly. And I'm sorry that my first response was… awfully snotty. It was six-something in the morning and you did a reeeeaaally good job of catching me completely off-guard. In any case, I think any 'friction' or tension is unnecessary (and hopefully not going to pop up unexpectedly or anything). Thank you for the positive comments (good slash is disturbingly hard to find in the Evo universe!) and good luck with the term papers! ^__^

I Am Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

When I finally drew the courage to go into my room, I found Pietro peacefully doing exactly as he'd been told. He was stretched out on the bed, lying on his side and, with his finger, tracing the patterns on the old quilt with lazy absorption. He didn't look at me when I came in, didn't look when I closed the door, didn't look when I sat next to him on the bed. 

Helplessly, I lay next to him and turned on my side so we could look each other in the eyes, if we so chose. But he kept his head dipped into his chest, silent refusal of any of my compassion. "Hey…" Gently, I put my hand on his shoulder, only barely touching him with the pads of my fingers. He didn't shrug me away, but didn't actually acknowledge me either. "Hey…" 

I don't know where the words came from.

"I love you."

I said it. Yes. I _said_ it. Aloud. I could barely choke out the phrase because I'd never, in my life, said it. I'd proclaimed my love for god when forced, I'd uttered the occasional 'I love…' such and such band or music or movie. When foster mommy used to ask if I loved her, I'd say 'yes'. When foster daddy hit me, kicked me, kissed me, and asked if I loved him, I'd say 'yes'. 

But I'd never said the words to someone else and meant them. Suddenly, there it was… a lifetime of pain and despair, of happiness and laughter, of regret and reminiscence out in the open. Three little words.

Pietro's head snapped up with such force I thought it would cause his brain to rattle in his skull. The nervousness and the sudden realization of the severity of what I'd said almost made me giggle with adrenal glee. I struggled to swallow it, swallow the giggles the same way I'd swallowed the pain and the anger, and force it into my stomach along with searing acids and semi-digested food. 

When his eyes met mine, the urge to laugh immediately disappeared. His eyes were almost soulless, light-blue and crystal clear, except for the faint eddies of hurt that pulled the corners down, caused the rings around his irises to deepen in color. "They all said that," he whispered before rolling over and tossing his legs over the edge of the bed. "They all said that." He stood and idly picked up a timeworn baseball that had been keeping time on my nightstand. 

_"And it's not true!" _He screeched the words with the slight hitch that always accompanies tears. In a split-second, in a fit of unprecedented anger, he threw the baseball as hard as he possibly could into the middle of my room's antique dresser. It hit the middle drawer hard, hard enough to cause a permanent baseball-sized dent in the mahogany that I never bothered to fix. The force of the blow caused some of the odds and ends I'd left on the dresser-top to tumble over; I winced as I heard my clock-radio hit the floor with an audible 'crack'.

Pietro sobbed once before covering his face with his hands and turning so his back was to me. I was frozen on the bed, too afraid, too unsure of myself to know what to do. Minutes passed, though it was hard to tell how many with a broken clock. But it felt like an eternity, a vulnerable and desperate eternity.

Finally, I decided that something had to be said, lest we stand at that impasse forever. "I'm not one of them."

"You could be." Came his muffled response.

"But I'm not." I emphasized the point as gently as I could. Then I reached for him, needily imploring that he pay attention to me, acknowledge me and my quaint idea of love. "Please. Please talk to me. I need to understand-"

"You don't!" He cut me off sharply, turning his head to the side and swinging one hand to rest on his hip. "You don't." He continued in a gentler voice. "Because I don't want you to look at me and think what everyone else thinks."

What did everyone else think? His words puzzled me. "I don't know-"

"Exactly!" He turned to face me, eyes flashing. "You don't know, and I don't want you to!"

"Why?"

"Because I'm bad!" He shouted with exasperation. "I'm dirty! I'm disgusting!"

"You're not-"

"I am." He stated firmly. "I am and I don't want you to be part of this. I can take care of myself." He turned to leave, but, with a sudden burst of energy, I grabbed him and pulled his light body onto the bed. We tussled for a few moments, but ultimately I was the stronger. With a final grunt, I pushed him onto his back and lay atop him, stubbornly pinning him to the mattress. We were both panting; it looked and sounded comically like sex. 

"Talk to me," I breathed, pushing my face into his face, allowing our noses to brush. "I told god we could handle this… please."

"Oh," he rolled his eyes, retaining the vaguest sense of his own misanthropic suspicion. "And you'll be damned if we let _god_ down, hmm?"

I grinned at the multi-layered pun, happy to be seeing shades of the true Pietro still shining through his tired eyes. "Of course." My grin faded as we stared at each other, silent and sad. "Talk?"

"Ok," he mumbled. I rolled off of him, but immediately wrapped an arm around his shoulders to keep him close to me. He blinked with surprise, but didn't comment on the affection. "What do you want me to talk about?"

"I'm not sure," I said with as much levity as I could, secretly relishing the way his body felt pressed against mine, sharing my heat. "I think that should be up to you."

He sighed. "I need… more direction than that."

"Ok." I ran my idle fingers through his soft, white hair. "Tell me about how it all started."

"How it all started," He repeated hollowly. "It started because… because I got tired."

"Tired of what?" He sighed again and rolled onto his back, way from me. He covered his eyes with his palm; I didn't know whether the sparse light hurt him, or whether he just didn't want me to see him struggle not to cry. 

"Tired of being fast," he finally mumbled into his hand as he dragged it across his face. I blinked. Tired of being fast? But being fast was Pietro's life… it was just a part of who he was. It was difficult for me to imagine him staying at the speed of the rest of the world for very long. 

But then… wasn't that what he'd been doing lately? I tried to think back, to think and recall whether he'd been up to normal speed the past several months. No… no, at night he was as slow as I was and no provocation could have made him otherwise. And during the days he would speed up, but it seemed like such a struggle. 

"Why?" It seemed like it was the only word I had left.

He cracked one eyelid open and gave me a blank stare. "Do you know how hard it is to be so fast all of the time while the rest of the world is so slow?" I shook my head, although the answer was obvious. "It's tiring. You can't imagine how tiring."

"Maybe I can," I whispered, thinking about how exhausted I used to become after using the mutant abilities I'd been given. "Manipulating rock is harder than it looks." He smiled mirthlessly.

"No. No, you can't. At least you can stop using your power anytime you want to. It never stops for me. Never." He gazed at me, face lined with seriousness. "I love being fast, Lance… but what's the point if I have to hide it all the time?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but realized I had no response. What was the point, after all?

Pietro noticed my gaping, speechless mouth and giggled shrilly. "You see? You don't know either!"

I shook my head and tossed him a little smile. "But… heroin…?"

"Depresses the central nervous system." He replied with textbook precision. "Slows you down. _Calms_ you down." 

"How did you…?"

"Know that?" He finished my question for me, and I wondered how predictable this conversation was for him. I wondered whether anyone had ever asked him these same questions. "When you've got the attention span of a fucking gnat, you tend to read a lot. Sometimes you read things you shouldn't."

"Oh."

"I never said it was a good thing." He swallowed and I watched, fascinated, as the muscles in his throat clenched and released. Clenched and released. "I decided I wanted to try it. Tried it. Loved it. Tried it again." He closed his eyes, and I saw that his lashes just barely brushed the emaciated peaks of bone and flesh beneath his eye sockets. "Loved it… and it just kept going."

I nodded my understanding. "And you started to need money to pay…" His jaw clenched as I spoke; it was obvious that this aspect was much more painful. 

"Yeah. Yeahyeahyeahyeahyeah. I only took the drugs in the evenings, partly to spare the rest of you… but mostly for me." His cheeks were slightly pink with shame; I could see that he was trying to avoid opening his eyes. "'Cause after you all went to sleep, I'd go out…"

"When did you sleep, then?" Well, it was a valid question.

For a moment he didn't answer. Then he opened his eyes and turned back on his side to look at me. One slender hand reached out and stroked my cheek. "I didn't. After awhile, I was just too afraid."

"Afraid of what?" He gave me a silent, piercing stare before snuggling himself back into my arms. Fondly, I wrapped my arms around him as I felt his legs tangle in mine.

"I was afraid I'd never wake up."


	6. I Am Frightened By the Devil (And Drawn ...

_Notes: _The review-whore returns! ::crickets chirp:: The review-whore is apparently not enough of a media prostitute because she can't garner too many reviews. ::gets out the garter belt and corset:: All right, let's begin!

Kidding! Ok, a note I forgot from the last chapter: the title was taken from an Everclear song called "Sick and Tired". Anybody want to know why I like Everclear so much? Anybody? No? Ok… The title of this chapter comes from the song "A Case of You" by Joni Mitchell. I love that song. Wow. Also in this chapter, Pietro sings a few lines from a song by the GoGos called "Our Lips Are Sealed". I dunno… it seemed like a good idea at the time. 

Also, something I've neglected to mention… while a lot of the emotions are based more on ones I've had under completely different circumstances, some of Pietro's thoughts, actions, etc. are based on real accounts of drug addicts and prostitutes. I do my homework, I do… just not math.

I Am Frightened By the Devil (And Drawn to Those That Ain't)

He stretched in my arms, grabbing at my shirt and twisting his spine. "I'm so tired," he yawned, mouth wide enough that I could see his tonsils. "I'm so tired… but I can't sleep."

"Of course you can sleep," I touched his warm forehead, ran my hand through his cool hair just to make sure he was still alive, not a dead weight on my chest. "Of course you can, of course you can." He had shaken me so badly that I was trembling; I wondered how much of a help I could really be.

"No, I can't," he muttered vaguely, "No, I don't want to die."

"You won't die," I assured him, every single word a lie. "You won't die, I'm right here. You won't die." But don't we all die, sooner or later? Such a question, such a question. I wondered briefly whether the next life would be any less frustrating. 

He giggled airily and swirled the fabric of my shirt into creative patterns. "'It doesn't matter what they say in the jealous games people play… heyheyhey.' God, I'm so fucked up…"

"No, you're not."

"Do you know what the worst was?" The drunken giddiness disappeared from his voice and he gazed at me with all seriousness.

"No… what?"

"'Hush, my darling, don't you cry. Quiet, angel, forget their lies'" He laughed again, mindless and eerie.

"What was the worst, Pietro?" I pressed my lips to the shell of his ear and blew against his skin. My mind swam with memories of large, powerful churches, stained glass, and crucifixes that I used to imagine would bleed onto the floor at night, where the church janitors would have to scrub and scrub to get the stains out before Mass. "Tell me."

"Car seats," He said with perfect sincerity. "Babies' car seats, children's toys, wedding rings…"

"I don't know if I-"

"God, that was always the worst," he pressed on, eyes tightly shut, ignoring my confusion. "Having to get into some prick's family station wagon- the car the kiddies rode in- and see his fucking wedding ring _watching_ me while I blew him…" his voice trailed off. I pulled him closer, as close as I possibly could, and kissed his forehead delicately. 

"I'm so sorry."

"Why?" Innocent blue eyes glanced up at me. "It's not as if you were that asshole. It's not like it's your fault I feel like I need drugs to live." His hands went to his face instinctively, and I watched as he dragged his nails down the sallow flesh of his cheeks, leaving long, red scratches on his pale skin. "Y'know what? I don't care. I want to sleep. I want to die."

"No, you don't," Frantically, I grabbed his wrists and stopped him from hurting himself further. "No, you don't. You want to live because _I_ want you to live."

Guiltily, he lowered his lashes and stared down at my hands. "Sometimes, Lance… you and I don't want the same things."

Suddenly my patience snapped and my fear took over. "This isn't my responsibility, you know!" I felt my grip on his wrists tighten, but was powerless to stop myself. "Why am I doing this anyway? Huh? Can you tell me why?"

His eyes were tearing. "Lance, you… you're _hurting_ me! Please…?"

"No! No 'please?', no requests from you!" I'm not even sure I was completely aware of what I was saying at the time. "You don't listen to me! Why don't you listen?" My eyes were watering with tears, all the tears that I hadn't shed in ten years. I shook Pietro and he stared at me with the wide, panicked eyes of a child. "Good! Be scared! Don't you get it? Do you know how much this scares _me_?"

"I'm sorry!" He squeezed his eyes shut and shouted. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"No, you're not," I growled back, jerking his wrists back and forth in a spastic dance of sheer emotional distraught. "You're never sorry for anything that you do, you egotistical little fuck. Have you ever thought about other people? Have you?"

"I… don't… know…" he hiccupped weakly, his body writhing against mine in an attempt to get free. To prevent anything of the sort from happening, I flipped him onto his back and straddled his waist, still keeping a firm grip on his stick-thin wrists. 

"The night we made love…" I whispered in his ear, bitterly noticing how badly his body was trembling under the stress of the row. "What did that mean? Was that for you? Or was it for me? You never let me do it before, god you barely let me _touch_ you before. And then, suddenly…. What changed?"

There was a long pause, marred only by the sound of his ragged pants and uncomfortable whimpers. 

"Please," he begged finally, voice soft with exhaustion. "Please…" I shook my head.

"No. Tell me."

He exhaled shakily; I could feel all of his muscles tense beneath me as he spoke. "I did it for you."

"Liar," Was my first response, and it was out before I could stop myself. "Don't lie to me."

Eyes closed in pain, he gulped frantically at the air between us. "I'm going to be sick," he turned his head to the side.

"No, you aren't."

"Please let me up."

"No." I relaxed my grip on his wrists, my anger having been dulled by pity and protectiveness. "Just tell me the truth."

"There is no truth."

"Then tell me the next best thing."

He smiled, a genuine smile as if he was lost in memories. "I did it for you."

"Why?" God, he baffled me. I didn't understand at all. What kind of game was he playing?

"Because I wanted to keep you… interested."

"Interested?" In my confusion I let his wrists go completely, moving my hands to either side of his head to support my weight. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean…" he hesitated, unnerved by the expression on my face. "I mean that I wanted you to stay with… with me. And if that meant, well…"

"Sex," I said bluntly. "You thought that I'd get bored with you if we didn't fuck?"

An expression of disgust flickered across his face, and he closed his eyes in pain. "Could you not call it that, please?"

"Sorry,' I muttered, feeling somewhat humbled. 

"Thank you." He tipped his head back slightly and took a very deep breath of the cooler air outside of our immediate radius. As he did so, I let my eyes trail over his arms and chest, took in all of his body language and every word he wasn't saying to me. Something about the way he reacted to being forcibly pinned down, the way he'd reacted to my anger, his sudden kittenish fearfulness of something bigger and stronger, and the unexpected prudish reaction he'd had to the word 'fuck' when used in reference to the two of us made me suspicious. 

"Pietro?" He lifted his head to look at me with owl eyes. "Were you ever raped?"

He held eye contact with me for a moment as I felt his limbs stiffen below mine. "Would you let me up, please?" Silently, I did so; he rolled off to the side of the bed and stood on shaky knees. I watched from behind as he pieced himself back together, smoothed his shirt down, and straightened his hair that had fallen into disarray during our tussle. "Sometimes things happen," He didn't bother to turn and I stared at his back with rapt attention. "It's nobody's fault really, but things go wrong…"

"Why do you keep talking in code?" I interrupted, not angry but simply curious. "Do you want us to be in love, Pietro? Or are you just afraid of being alone?" I paused, trying to give him time to answer, but he let the silence ring hard and heavy in our ears. "I want you to tell me what's been happening so I can help you. I want to help you. Do you want help?" Again I paused and, again, he didn't answer. "I don't want to fight with you. I want to see you happy, but…"

"It's so hard." He hugged himself, turning slightly so I could see his stricken profile. "It's so hard to find the words."

"Why?" I asked gently. "Why is it so hard?"

"Because saying them…" he began to wring his hands together, draining off his excess nervous energy, "Saying them makes everything real somehow. I don't know. I don't want it to be real. I want this to be a dream."

"But it's not." I tried to keep my voice steady and firm, yet sympathetic. "It's real. I'm sorry." He stood silent for a moment, reviewing the facts in his mind, before dropping like a rag doll into my lap. I caught him with surprise, trying to make as little skin-to-skin contact as I could. But he pressed his face into my neck, warm breath condensing on my skin, damp and sweaty.

"Are you afraid to touch me?" He whispered bitterly, obviously aware of my insecure hands. "I'm not diseased, you know. Just because someone did… something to me. I went and got tested." He glanced up at me. "Disease free."

"I know." I wrapped my hands around his shoulders and pulled him closer. "I didn't want you to feel uncomfortable." He sniffed, but I suspected this answer pacified him. 

"I liked to be touched when it's… nice." God, he sounded so little, he felt so little, so small, and so weightless. "I don't like being pinned down though. Or shoved, or… well, anything angry." He sounded a little sheepish. "It scares me. Me." He snorted and tossed his head a little; some strands of his hair hit my face like a very soft whip. "Me. And I always thought I was so great."

I brushed his hair back with my fingertips, gently pulling the strands from in my mouth and against my skin. "I'm sorry I get angry sometimes."

"I know." His voice was disturbingly quiet.

"I don't mean it."

"I know."

"I hope you do," I stressed. "And I'll do my best to control it from now on." He said nothing in response and we sat, intertwined in contemplative repose. Finally, he gave a little sigh, one of acquiescence. 

"I just want to be loved."

I pushed my lips against his ear and spoke through a curtain of fine, white hairs. "Don't we all?"


	7. I Had To Fall To Lose It All (And In The...

Notes: Oh my god, I'm so depressed. Sort of. Sort of depressed/hyperactive. Wheeeee. Title of this chapter is from Linkin' Park's "In The End". I think I swore that I'd never like them at some point in my life… oh well. I lied. So there…

Thank you to all who read and all who review especially. It helps me get my ass in gear.

I Had To Fall To Lose It All (And In The End It Doesn't Matter)

He fell asleep in my arms. I honestly didn't think that happened outside of Harlequin romance novels and sappy made-for-tv movies. But he did, head nestled in the crook of my shoulder. I could hear him breathe and sigh as he dozed, the bodily exhaustion finally catching up with him. As I lay back, slowly adjusting his limp arms and legs for our maximum comfort, I wondered how long it would be until withdrawal caught up with him. How long until his arms were rough with goosebumps and his skin clammy with a cold sweat? How long until he was crouched over the toilet, frantically trying to vomit with nothing in his stomach?

I remember reading somewhere that the affects of withdrawal from heroin abuse are worse than the affects of the abuse itself. How ironic. How bitterly, bitterly ironic. How fucking sickening and ironic. Maybe things would have been ok if we'd kept him on the heroin, just a little bit a day, enough to calm him down. Enough to survive until he died. And then maybe we could have died together, like brothers. 

Such a romantic dream. I never knew how much of a sap I could really be, until I decided that I was in love with Pietro. Suddenly I was filled with these silly, little girl visions of kittens and babies and white weddings. Happiness. But, deep inside, I also wanted gothic castles, vampires, blood, and erotica. Literary romanticism. I think there's a little part in all of us that wants mystery and bad things, that wants to be unhappy because it's dramatic. 

I used to have rape fantasies and dreams. I never told anyone; it was too strange. Not until they dangled it over my head like blackmail. Like torture. Here was this horrible act that was supposed to strip you of your humanity… and I was getting off on it? I imagined the pain and I liked it. I imagined being naked and beaten. I imagined the anal penetration. I imagined being pushed to my knees, having my mouth pried open by huge, hairy hands, and having some guy's cock forced down my throat. And I _enjoyed_ it. Hell, I even masturbated to that thought, occasionally.

Until I saw what it had done to Pietro. He had lived it; what right did I have to find rape appealing or sexually arousing? He hated that part of himself so much… it made me pity him. It made me wonder what had actually happened. No, he never wanted to talk about it. Never did talk about it. Maybe he thought it was his fault? And in a way it really was. I guess the pamphlets always scream in great, huge letters "IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT!", but I don't think that was really true for him. After all, he'd been the one putting himself into the dangerous places. And he knew they were dangerous. 

It was all his fault. If he had wanted to place blame, I think he'd have great difficulty finding a scapegoat. And we always want scapegoats don't we? We always want someone to take the responsibility for something that we should be able to. We want to point fingers. We want lawsuits, shouting matches, and cold silences. We always want justice for the bad things that happen.

The funny thing is, he was so right. "Sometimes things happen. It's nobody's fault, really, but things go wrong…" Yes. What a mature way to put it. So mature, and yet so naïve. A normal person would have tried to blame someone else, but he just took it all onto his shoulders. No comment. Or maybe he really thought that no one was at fault for his rape. It was so hard to tell.

No. No… it wasn't all his fault. It was his fault for putting himself in the situations he did. But… but, he didn't want it. He didn't ask for it. They didn't have to touch him. They could have stopped if he'd said 'no'. Couldn't they?

I can't think about it. Are there really people out there who would ignore someone pleading with them, shouting, kicking, biting, crying? Are there people heartless enough to laugh and say 'fuck you'? It hurts to believe that. It hurts to think that they could have stopped and didn't. 

The counselors later told me that my rape fantasies stemmed from repressed sexual abuse I'd suffered at the hands of my foster father. I didn't want to believe it. I don't know if I do believe it. Maybe they say that to everyone. Maybe it's just another way to divvy up the blame. They kept talking about blackouts, hypnosis, talking in my sleep. But I really suspect they couldn't prove it. Hell, they even said it might have contributed to the shape of my homosexuality.

Isn't that funny?

I'm not laughing though. 

It hurts to think about that too.

I held him and watched him sleep. Sometimes I think that, subconsciously, I was actually watching over him. Protecting him. The world… the world is so big, you know. And he was so small. I felt like maybe that was what he really needed was someone to take care of him and protect him. And I could do that. I could be big, I could be strong, I could stop the bad things if they came. I knew I could. And I knew we could get rid of the drugs.

And I knew things would be ok, eventually.

Late afternoon, Todd came knocking timidly on the door. He said he and the others had heard yelling earlier and were concerned about us. I assured him that everything was fine; he left reluctantly. 

People often underestimate poor Todd's intelligence. He's quite observant, beady little toad-eyes taking notes on the entire world. I know he knew something was wrong. I also suspected that he knew Pietro and I had gone beyond friendship; or, if he hadn't before, seeing us curled together on my bed must have raised suspicions. But he was observant, not mean. I doubt he said anything to worry Freddy and Tabby when he went back downstairs. And I know he didn't tell them that my lips had been brushing Pietro's forehead when he'd entered with minimal warning, or that one of Pietro's thighs was nestled between my own, his ankle curved around mine. Todd's just not that kind of person.

Sometime just after sunset, Pietro woke up, shaking from head to toe. Within minutes he was in the bathroom. I could hear him gagging. With an infinite amount of calm, I went down to the kitchen, found the phone book, found the number of the nearest free clinic, and called for an appointment the next day.

Then I went back upstairs and into the bathroom where Pietro was kneeling on the tile floor and gripping the sides of the toilet with white knuckles. A cool sweat had broken out on his forehead; his skin was deathly cold and clammy as I brushed my palm over his pale face. He looked up with wild eyes that begged me to end this torture. "I know," I whispered, sitting on the edge of the bathtub and placing my hand on his back. I could feel the bumps of his spine. "I know."

With no warning at all, his entire chest heaved beneath my hand. I felt every muscle tense and clench; I felt the sharp kicks within his body as his stomach attempted to regurgitate its contents. It was startling and painful to watch as his throat spasmed and tears dripped from the eyes he had clenched shut down to his open mouth. I swallowed my own fear and rubbed his back, trying to ease the pain of the vomiting slightly.

When he had finished, leaving the toilet painfully empty once again, I embraced him. He was sobbing hoarsely, every noise that left his mouth sounding oddly like the bark of a dying seal. 

I rocked him gently, back and forth, back and forth, and wished frantically that I could absorb his pain. His muscles were twitching, one of his legs was kicking involuntarily at the floor. It was so painful to watch, to feel. And he was so small… so small.

And I couldn't protect him. I could protect him from the outside, but not from the inside. 

"Just hold on," I hissed into his ear as he clutched at my shoulders with claw-like fingers, "Hold on until tomorrow. It'll get better."

"I promise it'll get better."


	8. In The Hospital Where Stetchers Are Arms...

Notes: Whoa does this suck… This series is drawing itself out so much… . But… er… yeah. 

One… two… three more parts? If I'm lucky. Title comes from a song called "Free Ride" by Embrace. Mood go up… mood come down… mood go up…

In The Hospital Where Stretchers Are Arms and Hands

I hate hospitals. There's something very wrong about them, about the way they try to seem cheerful and happy. "We're here to heal!" is what the outside is trying to say, but the inside says "People come in here and they never come out".

They never come out.

I don't handle death very well. Both my natural parents were killed in a car accident; I don't remember them at all. They died and I didn't understand that they wouldn't be coming home. People tried to explain to me, they tried to explain what had happened and why. But I wasn't a particularly bright small child. Even when they put me into the foster home, I still thought that, maybe, someday mommy and daddy would come back. Stupid pipe dreams. And then one evening, foster-daddy had the news on. I was maybe five? Six years old? I happened to walk in during a report on a very nasty car accident. The reporter was a blonde woman who looked thin and harried; her hair was being blown askew by the wind and her makeup smudged slightly from the light rain. Behind her was a pile of twisted metal and men and women working to pry it open, to do _something _to it. I didn't listen to that woman, to that reporter. I kept my eyes fixed on the wreckage behind her because I had to know…_ what were they doing?_

It seemed like nothing until the very end of the report. They were just making the necessary closing small talk about the senseless tragedy. "Car accident," they kept saying. "Car accident."

One of the paramedics in the background finally hefted a white, twisted thing in his arm. I had to look at it for a moment before realizing what it was. 

A person. Sexless, ageless, immobile, and dead, dead, dead. "Car accident," everyone had said after my parents had disappeared. "Car accident," the reporter said. Suddenly it all clicked together in my brain.

I seem to remember screaming. I think, at the time, that I thought that was my mother on the tv screen, being lifted by that strange, frightening man in white. I just didn't understand. 

Sometimes I pretend I can remember being taken to the hospital the night of the accident by the next-door neighbor I'd been left with. But that's stupid. I barely spent any time in the hospital that night, and anyway I was so young. It wouldn't have mattered if I'd spent days there. 

But it seems like a much better reason for hating hospitals than the alternative. 

Oh, the alternative! Which would you like? Foster-mommy was so prolific, after all. I got very used to the waiting room of the emergency room, sitting close to foster-daddy, but not too close. It didn't matter anyway. He was always so far gone on those nights, looking sad, tired, and old. He would just sit, sit and stare at the wall. It made me uncomfortable, and by that time I was old enough to know that a hospital waiting room wasn't the place families were supposed to spend their Friday evenings. 

But there we were. I swear, I watched people grow and change and die in that stupid prison. Nurses, doctors, orderlies, interns. Patients. So many patients. So many nights. So many scars, so much blood, so many stitches. Yes, the first time I ever found myself a part of the stupid charade, I wasn't even worried. Because she stood and she walked, glassy-eyed, out of our house and to the car. She walked into the hospital with a towel around her wrists. And I figured that if she could do so much, then she'd eventually walk back out of the hospital. Which she did. 

But she'd just walk back in a few weeks later. Oh, once or twice she swallowed pills and we had to call for an ambulance. Still, I think she preferred slitting her wrists once or twice a month in some horrible fit of rage… and then realizing that she wanted to live. Again, and again, and again. I wonder now why they didn't just admit her to the psychiatric ward. Maybe she didn't want it. Maybe foster-daddy didn't want it. Maybe we didn't have enough money or the insurance company wouldn't pay for it. I don't know; no one ever bothered to tell me. 

I heard a lot of phrases get tossed around in those days. Depressive, manic-depressive, borderline personality. Medication, lots of different kinds. Pink pills, purple pills, green pills, all very pretty. But scary. Very scary. And, of course, the scars and the stitches. Ugly, blotchy, red, yellow, orange, crimson, and black, they were the most frightening. Sometimes they were hidden under bandages, but after awhile she'd always get sick of those and discard them. Foster-mommy was so pretty; the scars were so ugly. Sometimes it was so gruesome it made me uneasy to hug and kiss her when she called. 

And that's the real reason I hate hospitals so much. 

The clinic didn't look like a hospital; in fact, it almost looked like a home. A tiny box of a home in the city, a twenty-minute drive away, during which Pietro spent spitting into a towel and trying not to shake. When we stepped inside, it was warm and cozy and, above all, _safe_. I don't know how it managed that. I could have stepped onto the street and felt vulnerable and scared, but inside the clinic I was wrapped in a cocoon of the love of strangers. These people… they just wanted to help…

Pietro collapsed on one of the chairs in the waiting room, next to an untidy girl with limp blonde hair, sunken eyes, and a wan smile. I gave his shoulders a sympathetic squeeze before going to see the head receptionist to confirm that Pietro had arrived as a patient. 

It was hard to walk away from him, however. My life has been filled with bad nights, but the hardest thing to do is watch someone you love suffer. And Pietro was suffering. Suffering because of his own stupidity and because of his own wrongs. We'd spent the night in the bathroom, he trying as hard as he could to vomit or control himself and I providing the solid brick of a human being people sometimes need to lean on. I'd brought some blankets and pillows in and created a makeshift bed on the floor where we were able to sleep for a few restless hours in the early morning before the cycle had begun again. 

It's hard to walk away from a person who, just a few hours ago, was begging you to help him, to make it all better. To make it all better or kill him. 

Even when you know you'll be walking back. 


	9. What Makes You Think You Are Unique?

Notes: Short and kinda weird. Hey, just like me! Umm… yeah. We're ending this soon. Yes, we are. 

But I'm curious. What do people _think_ is going to happen? Honestly now. I mean, I already know what I want… what do you wonderful people reading the story think? ^__^;;

What Makes You Think You Are Unique?

The receptionists were surprisingly receptive and it took less than two minutes to confirm Pietro's appointment and receive the paperwork they expected from us. As a free clinic, they didn't expect much of anything, which was a tremendous relief for me. I'd been expecting them to ask for things like insurance, signatures of guardians, extensive background, social security numbers, and the like. But all they really wanted was a brief overview of Pietro's medical history and a signature to clear them of primary liability. 

The clinic was clean, warm, and soothing, yet I was still skeptical. I'd been brought up alongside the bureaucracy of the conventional medical association and was still expecting to be subject to high costs and invasions of privacy. 

The real bottom-line was, I didn't want to admit to being helpless. It was one thing to be poor. It was quite another to be ill and poor with no insurance and no definable source of income. When I signed my name on the dotted line, I felt like I was signing our pride away. 

But Pietro was more important than my own unattainable concepts of independence and dignity. Of course I signed. I didn't have a choice.

The other tricky point was, naturally, Pietro's mutant abilities. While they'd been suppressed slightly by the drug use, any doctor with half a brain would be able to press his hand to Pietro's chest and figure out that something wasn't right. I had decided earlier that it would be best to inform them of this at the start, but I honestly didn't know what to write down. "Wacked out metabolic genes"? Or maybe "Freaky mutation that causes patient's heart to beat as fast as a hummingbird"?

Eventually, I decided on a simple "extremely fast metabolism", figuring that the doctors would do the rest of the detective work on their own. I handed the paperwork back to the women behind the desks and began an anxious walk back to the chairs in the waiting room. Pietro was perching nearly on the edge of his seat, leaning forward with his head buried in his hands. The blonde girl next to him was rubbing his back and speaking to him in low tones that I couldn't hear from across the room. 

A flash of jealousy made itself known before reality reasserted itself. Pietro was violently ill and the girl was trying to comfort him. That was all. There was nothing wrong with it. I forced the disturbingly possessive thoughts out of my head before I gathered the courage to walk over to them. I crouched down before Pietro and gently peeled his hands away from his face. His blue eyes shined at me from within their skeletal pockets. "Hey," I whispered. "Not much longer, ok?" He nodded. "You'll feel better real soon, I promise."

I looked up and saw that the girl was giving me a small smile of encouragement. Her eyes were bright and intelligent, but sad. Very sad. I turned away from her quickly. Somehow, this felt like a private moment… a private moment spoiled by her existence. Suddenly, what I felt was acute self-consciousness. What was she thinking? Was she thinking 'fags', 'fruits', 'homos' in the privacy of her mind? Or did she think that I was his brother? Or some other relative? Not knowing made me frightened. Pietro and I had never been physically affection outside of our bedrooms; we were both subconsciously afraid of public scorn. 

"Pietro Maximoff?" A female voice behind us sounded out the syllables of Pietro's name. I turned to see a nurse standing a few respectable feet away, giving us a look somewhere between confusion and pity. I stood and gently tugged Pietro up with me. He was heavy, nearly dead weight in my arms. 

"Do you want me to come with you?" I whispered in his ear. "I'm sure they'd let me if you wanted me to-"

"No." His voice was firm. "Doctor stuff is always humiliating." He glanced up at me and the corners of his lips turned up in a weak smile. "I can do it on my own." With that said, he released my hands and began to walk unsteadily toward the nurse.

Part of me felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. It hurt to be let go like that, after an entire miserable night of whispering comforts in his hair and holding him while he was sick. It made me feel worthless, like all of my love had been for nothing. There was no gratitude. No thanks. 

No need for me.

As he and the nurse disappeared down one of the many twisting hallways, the girl spoke. "Don't feel bad."

"Huh?" Her low, husky voice jolted me out of my reverie and I turned to face her with suspicion. "What do you mean?"

She nodded thoughtfully toward the path he'd taken. "That's just one step that he has to take by himself. It doesn't mean that he doesn't need you or that he doesn't… love you. It's just… if he really wants to get better… he really needs to make that first move on his own." She turned and her eyes were steely. "You get?"

"Y-yeah…" I hesitated. She was odd. Not really threatening, but a little unsettling. Her eyes were a very light blue; the color didn't seem to fit the rest of her face properly. Her nose was a fraction too large, her hair was greasy and matted, and her clothes were mismatched and ill-fitting, like hand-me-downs from a phantom brother or sister.

"Heroin," she said after her piercing eyes had conducted a sufficient study of me. "Your friend. Right?"

I realized I was holding my breath and slowly let exhaled in one huge, drawn out sigh. "How did you know?" I asked weakly.

She extended one hand. "My name is Hailey."

"I'm addicted to heroin."


	10. Just Another Overdose

Notes: Ah… Coming up on the ending, yupyup. Apologies to Medusa, who didn't like Hailey much. ^_~ Well… here you go.

Last title was from Everclear's "Like A California King". This time it's from Everclear's "Heroin Girl" (which is incidentally where the catchphrase for the entire story comes from as well…) And I know you're thinking you know where this story is going.

Nope. ^__^ I don't think so!

Just Another Overdose

For the first time, I'm not sure how to tell the story. There's something about recovery that's not as interesting, not as heart-wrenchingly difficult, as the addiction itself. I can't even bring myself to think about it because, honestly, I can't remember all of it. Everything went by quickly, too quickly. 

"Sit down," this strange girl named Hailey had said to me. "Sit down. Relax. I'm crazy, not violent." She'd smiled to show she was kidding, but her smile made her seem even more feral and predatory. Still, I obeyed the command.

And, thank god, she didn't said anything else to me until nearly fifteen minutes later when the nurse had come to retrieve me. 

"Good luck," she'd called, tossing me another smile. 

It made me shiver. 

And, like all long stories made short, the news was both good and bad. Pietro could recover- would recover- with a certain amount of work. I listened, stunned, as the doctor outlined a plan for rehabilitation. Counseling, support groups, telephone numbers, national associations for help with drug abuse and, most importantly, a drug called methadone. 

Most of all, it baffled me how you could treat a drug addiction with another drug. The doctor explained that methadone was an opiate, the same way that heroin was. But methadone didn't provide the same high. Instead, it would regulate the parts of the body most susceptible to the withdrawal symptoms of heroin abuse. It would allow to Pietro to discard heroin gracefully and relatively painlessly. 

Yes, methadone was habit forming. It was addictive. But the tolerance levels were slow to build, and in that respect it was relatively safe. The normal process for patients on methadone was to decrease the dosage on a regular basis until eventually they were free of it as well.

He said that this process could sometimes take years. And, on average, it was only successful about half of the time. But it was the only option we had. 

Oh, and one other complication: Pietro's mutant gene. Something I actually hadn't considered was how his faster metabolism would absorb the drug. And absorb it did. Apparently, he had to ingest three times the amount of heroin than the average junkie just to obtain the same high. Which meant that he had become addicted more quickly, which meant that his tolerance levels were through the roof. Which mean that his withdrawal symptoms had been about three times worse than the average.

Which meant that the amount of methadone he'd have to take would have to be adjusted carefully. The doctor informed me of all this with a sad and slightly uncomfortable look in his eyes. Pietro had sprawled, boneless, on my lap. They'd already given him some of this strange "wonder drug" and the effect was astonishing. He was calm to the point of falling asleep. His tremors had stopped. His skin was smooth and free of goosebumps. 

But the methadone would have to be regulated very, very carefully. "Swallowing a few mouthfuls of this stuff could kill the average adolescent." The doctor said, glancing from me to Pietro warily. "Obviously, he's not your average adolescent. Still, I want to be extra cautious with this."

We left the clinic with a bottle of methadone and an appointment with a counselor the next week. As we'd passed through the waiting room, I'd searched frantically for any sign of that girl, Hailey. More than anything, I didn't want to run into her, not with my arms around Pietro's shoulders, not with his head buried in my chest. The looks of pity and bemusement the receptionists gave us made me uncomfortable enough. 

However, she wasn't anywhere to be seen. She must have been called in for her appointment. We left without incident.

Hailey. Hail-ey. I'm still not sure why, but I disliked her from the very beginning. It was that silly, strange, completely unwarranted dislike that sometimes strikes us when we meet new people. She just… rubbed me the wrong way. Her attempts at being friendly- comforting Pietro, reassuring me- made me want even more to push her away. 

All this after only 15 minutes of sitting in the same room with her. Some people… some people are perfectly _nice _people. They just give you a feeling of… well, _wrongness_. Sort of a tingly, prickling feeling of fear or anger. That was exactly my experience with her… and my feelings never changed. 

Pietro, however, adored her. She usually had her appointments on the same day he had his checkups and meetings with the counselors. They'd talk and gossip and exchange information for the brief period before one or the other got called into the doctor's office. He said that she was great, really funny and friendly. He told me I should make more of an attempt to get to know her, awesome person that she was.

I never flat-out refused him. But she really did make me uncomfortable. I think I said something about him having his own friendships and being able to share certain stuff with people other than me. Something really stupid like that. 

But he never pressured me into liking her. They'd talk about different treatments, what different people had said to them, each of them recounting their different experiences with the drug. And I'd sit a couple of chairs away and pretend to read a magazine. 

She was good for him, she really was. I'm not sure he would have gotten to the point he did without having that comrade, that companion in pain. Still, sometimes she'd say something that would make me frown inwardly, that would make me want to intrude on the conversation so I could give my own opinion.

Once, out of the blue, she asked Pietro, "Are you gay?" No provocation. I think they'd been talking about some tv show they'd both watched the night before. "Are you gay?"

Pietro inhaled sharply and I immediately looked up from my magazine. She observed our reactions thoughtfully and then turned to me. "Are _you _gay?"

I couldn't say anything, but Pietro managed a weak response. "Why… are you asking?" He had whispered. 

She shrugged. "Hey, maybe I read it wrong. No big deal. Just curious."

"It's none of your damn business," I'd growled, not even brave enough to look this girl in the eye. Pietro coughed and looked away also, clearly embarrassed. 

She shrugged again. "Ok." And they'd gone back to talking about the latest "Buffy" episode. 

For the most part, I just tried not to think about her. Her presence was like an itch in my brain that, if I could just forget about it, would go away. Instead, I tried to focus on school, or the household… or how incredibly better Pietro was getting. 

The doctors told me once or twice that they'd never seen progression quite like Pietro's; the effects of his addiction had gone from awful to nearly normal in a matter of weeks. But they needn't have said anything for me to catch on to this point.

After all, we lived in the same house. We shared the same bed, now. The day after they had prescribed the methadone, I stayed home from school with him. It was a Monday. By the evening, he was crawling the walls with boredom. Tuesday, he went to school. He had a short period at lunch where he felt dizzy… thought he was going to throw up. But he didn't. 

I don't know whether it was his fast metabolism that caused him to heal so quickly… or whether it was something else. Some people talk about the 'healing power of love', but I've always regarded that as new-age altruistic bullshit. 

Love.

Love.

I _loved_ you, Pietro. Poor baby. I can't imagine what it's like where you are now. Is it dark? Is it cold? Does it smell like dirt, death, and decay? Have the worms gnawed through your eyeballs yet?

What an awful image.

The thing is that everything went wrong so _quickly_… I don't think I was ever able to get a concrete grasp on what happened. My life has been like… like grappling with a wet bar of soap ever since. You keep trying and trying to hold on… but reality just keeps slipping away from you. 

I can still touch it, taste it, smell it. I just can't hold on to it.

You had an appointment, just like any other Sunday in the bright and bleary midmorning. The rest of the house was beginning to feel a little confused, suspicious about where we were always heading off to on those prescribed days of the week. But it didn't matter. No, nothing mattered. 

Because you were happy. You were finally happy. Your eyes sparkled, your hair shone, and you were so fucking beautiful. So happy, so energetic that I caught the bug. It had been nearly a month and here we were. We swam the river, we ran the race, and the Owl Creek Bridge had been left behind. 

For the rest of your life.

The clinic looked exactly the same. The waiting room looked exactly the same. Nothing felt out of place, except…

Hailey was missing. It was puzzling… she was always there on Sundays, as that was her review of the methadone dosage. But she was nowhere to be found.

With an air of puzzlement and casual friendliness, Pietro asked the receptionist on duty if Hailey had been in to see her doctor yet. "Ma'am? Have you seen Hailey recently?"

"Who?" The woman looked a little hassled and tired.

"Um… Hailey. I don't know her last name. Short girl, blond, kinda… scruffy looking?" Pietro gave me an odd look, somewhere between worry and good humor. "Have you seen her? She's usually in here around this time on Sundays."

The woman's face tensed with recognition. "Are… are you a friend of hers?"

Pietro nodded. "Yeah, kinda. We talk sometimes." He shot me another look. "Is everything ok?"

The woman sighed as her face became a mask of pity. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this. Miss Steinham- Hailey- was brought in last night suffering from a heroin overdose. Apparently, in a moment of distress she injected a fatal amount.

She… she didn't last an hour. I'm very sorry, dear.

She's dead."

The change in Pietro was apparent as soon as the woman uttered the words 'heroin overdose'. I watched, horrified, as every drop of life dropped from his features. His eyes looked blank, dead. His face went completely slack and his skin paled considerably. Still, he found a response for the woman. "I… I… I just… thank you." He mumbled, pushing away from the check-in counter and heading toward the exit.

I followed him, calling his name the entire time. "Pietro, wait! Wait! Come here… please? I'm sorry Pietro, I'm so sorry!" He stopped once he'd gotten clear of the door; I pulled him into a tight embrace.

He did not hug me back.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to him. "I know she was your friend; I'm so sorry this had to happen-"

"She's dead." His voice shook. "She's dead; she's never coming back."

"Yes…" I replied hesitantly. "Yes, I know… and I'm so sorry."

He was silent for a moment and then, abruptly, he pushed me away. I tripped over the low porch step and fell onto my back.

He screamed. Loud and short, he screamed. Then the scream became a wail, and the wail became a string of words.

"She killed herself! She lied, she said she was completely off of it, she wasn't! She killed herself, it's not fucking fair! I hate her, I hate everything! I hate this- this life!" he began to back away from me, still talking. "No, no, NO! I can't do this anymore, Lance!" He trailed off and stared at me. His eyes were still shining, but in a different way. "Why wasn't it _me_, Lance? Huh? Why did she die? Why are we still alive?

I don't understand anymore!" His voice rose to a scream again and he covered his eyes. 

"Pietro-" I began, but he cut me off almost immediately.

"I _can't_, Lance! I can't.!" He moved his hands and began to back unsteadily away from me. "I have to be alone, Lance. I have to run." He edged farther toward the street. "Stay away from me, please? 

I… I don't want to hurt you!"

And, in a swift gust of wind, he was gone.

From Karl Shapiro's poem _Auto Wreck_

_Our throats were tight as tourniquets,  
Our feet were bound with splints, but now,  
Like convalescents intimate and gauche,  
We speak through sickly smiles and warn  
With the stubborn saw of common sense,  
The grim joke and the banal resolution.  
The traffic moves around with care,  
But we remain, touching a wound  
That opens to our richest horror.  
Already old, the question, Who shall die?  
Becomes unspoken, Who is innocent?  
For death in war is done by hands;  
Suicide has cause and stillbirth, logic;  
And cancer, simple as a flower, blooms.  
But this invites the occult mind,  
Cancels our physics with a sneer,  
And spatters all we knew of dénouement  
Across the expedient and wicked stones._


	11. As Death Slides Close To Me, Won't Grow ...

Notes: One more chapter, I swear. I swear. I swear. *prays for the end to be near* Title comes from Third Eye Blind's "Slow Motion".

As Death Slides Close To Me, Won't Grow Old To Be

These days, more than anything, I feel tired. All of the time. I feel so tired that I can't get out of this tiny, sterilized white bed for anything. Too tired to eat, too tired to talk, too tired to think. 

I think I'm killing myself. But I can't get over it; I can't step over the pain to find life. All the medication, all the therapy, all of the hospitals in the world aren't going to make me any better. 

More than anything, I'm so glad to have figured this out. But still I wonder… is death the only way out? In death there may be reunion, and for that I would be immeasurably happy. But suicide feels like such a weak answer. I don't want to be just another death, nor another basket case in a hospital. I don't want to be a coward. But I'm not doing anyone any good sitting here day after day in this white-walled prison. 

Pietro ran away and I ran home, hoping and praying that he'd gone back there instead of toward the city. Because toward the city there was so much danger. And I didn't really trust Pietro's judgment when he was so upset.

No. He hadn't come home. I paced the floors with worry for hours, and he didn't come home. I tried to find something constructive to do, but _he didn't come home. _

I had my first honest-to-god panic attack at eleven o'clock that evening. Sitting in my room, whining and keening and moaning and pulling out my hair, I panicked and prayed to God. _Please God, bring him back. We tried so hard, God. Please understand. I'll do anything, anything at all._

_Just don't take him. Don't leave me here alone._

I had two more panic attacks that night, at 2:30 and 4:25 respectively. I drifted nervously in and out of sleep. I hyperventilated. I paced. I bit my nails. I didn't know what else to do. I'd check periodically; check his room, check the living room, check the kitchen, check the bathroom, check _everywhere to see if maybe, possibly, he had returned home. But somehow I knew, in some small, scared part of my brain, that he wouldn't be coming home. I knew where he'd gone, and I knew he'd never be coming home._

And goddamn if that little part of me wasn't right.

I got up early, wandered around the house a little, and then gave up and sat at the kitchen table. It was Monday, of course, because his appointments at the clinic were always on Sundays. And it should have been a school day, but it wasn't because of some sort of teacher's in-service. So I was the only one awake for hours and hours, because the rest of the house had taken the opportunity to sleep in. I sat and watched the sun rise. I thought about being Catholic and how suicide is a sin, but self-mutilation apparently isn't. I thought about honoring thy father and thy mother and how that doesn't seem to apply the other way around, since I was never particularly honored. I put my palms together for the first time in years and actually prayed. The Lord's prayer, a Hail Mary, whatever I could think of. I babbled out loud, and I honestly hope God was listening. 

Tabitha was the first to stumble downstairs. She stared at me for a moment with bleary eyes, still wearing her pajamas, and then turned to look behind her. Seeing nothing, she looked back at me. 

"Have you been sitting here all night?" She asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. I only nodded before letting my head sink into my hands.

"Did Pietro come home?" She voiced her second question in a low voice, obviously concerned. It made me want to cry. 

"No," I mumbled from between my fingers. She stood, silent, for a moment before beginning to fix herself breakfast. Todd came down about half an hour later, followed closely by Freddy. They tiptoed around me in silence

At almost eleven o'clock, there was a knock at the door. I leapt from my seat, knocking over the chair, and sprinted into the foyer. I thought it was Pietro; relief was coursing through my entire body. When I think back, I wonder why this was. Why would Pietro knock, after all? Perhaps it was optimism, blind optimism. I wanted so badly to believe he was coming home. 

However, when I opened the door I found, not Pietro, but a young and nervous policeman.

He had his hat off. 

A policeman holding his hat is a very bad sign.  

Before I could say a word, he spoke. "May I please speak with the legal guardian of Pietro Maximoff?"

I swallowed hard. "I'm his legal guardian." The policeman narrowed his eyes slightly.

"I was informed that a Miss Raven Darkholme was recently named as his legal guardian."

"She left us," I replied curtly, my patience cut short. "I'm eighteen; I'm his legal guardian." A hand touched my shoulder, and I turned to see Tabby, Todd, and Fred standing behind me.

"What's going on, Lance?" Tabby whispered. They were all staring at me, wide-eyed and confused, Tabitha at the forefront. I shrugged off her fingertips and turned back to the cop. 

"What is your name, please?"

"Lance Alvers." 

He had pulled out a notebook and took my name down diligently. "Son, may I please step inside?"

"No," I said through clenched teeth. "No, you can't." I stepped on to the porch and pulled the door halfway shut behind me. "Tell me out here. Tell me what happened. Where is he?"

"I regret to inform you…" The man obviously had his speech rehearsed. But as soon as I heard those words come out his mouth, I knew. I knew for sure.

"He's dead isn't he?"

"… He was found in a particularly rough neighborhood…"

A pause. 

"Apparently he was a target for robbery. Because he didn't relinquish his wallet right away, he was shot repeatedly in the head." I began to blink rapidly in unspoken pain. "Police were called as soon as the shots were heard but there was little we could do… officers are still on the lookout for the perpetrator."

Another pause. He seemed to be waiting for a further reaction from me, but I had none to give.

"He was dead on arrival. He didn't suffer."

I closed my eyes then and clearly saw a rainy night, a treacherous curve, a car going off the side of the road and careening into a gigantic elm tree. The tree had made it, but my mother had been dead on arrival, my father brain-dead on arrival. And a larger-than-life policeman had appeared in my doorway with his hat off. I could feel the cycle repeating. 

"I'm sure this is a very difficult time for you, but… I'm afraid…" He coughed nervously. "I'm afraid I'll need you to come down to the police morgue to identify the body."

I could only nod. "One moment, please." I held up a single finger and kept my head bowed as I stepped lightly across the threshold into the Brotherhood Boarding House, now less one member. The surviving inhabitants stared at me with eager and anxious faces. 

"Why is there a policeman here?" Tabitha paused and, seeing the look on my face, lowered her voice. "Is it about Pietro? Where is he, Lance?" I stared at her for a moment, not comprehending. Why was she still here? Why was I still here? Why were we all still alive and why was Pietro dead?

"Gone." I croaked finally. "Gone. Not coming back."

"Where did he go?" Todd's voice was very small in the still and quiet room; I felt pity for him. For all of them. 

"I hope…" My voice cracked suddenly, and they all tensed, waiting for my explanation. "I hope there is a God."

Tabby gasped. Fred closed his eyes. I stared down at the floor, seeing it with new eyes. 

"I have to go… go to the morgue. To identify… his… remains." After a moment, I felt a hand curl over my own. I looked up to see Tabitha's blue eyes shining up at me. They reminded me eerily of Pietro's.

"We'll come with you."


End file.
